Best First Hours

excitebike 64

Some games are unforgettable. After forking over our birthday money at
K-Mart, we bounce all the way home in the backseat of the station wagon,
wrestle the plastic wrap away from the box, gingerly place the game in
the system, and steady our feverishly shaking hands with an anaconda
grip on the controller. We don't let go for hours. And when the credits
roll, we tear up a little, knowing we'll always cherish that first time
through.

And then there are games that are largely forgotten weeks after release.
Niche appeal, scathing reviews, or even just lack of hype can doom a
game to obscurity and the Target bargain bin. But even these games
deserve a second look...sometimes. Every once in a while, a kernel of
brilliance can be found within these steaming piles of mediocrity. The
purpose of this feature is to sift out some of these conceptual gems and
put them under the microscope.

Today we'll deal out the Poker Races from ExciteBots: Trick Racing, and
see how easy it can be to add layers of strategy to a game by simply
cramming another game into it.